My Dear, Dear Friend
by Kitty Ryan
Summary: Lindhall Reed's world, after Arram Draper has gone. A story of cages and names, and dangerous conversations with a certain Miss Kingsford.
1. Feeding the Turtles, as a Friend

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My Dear, Dear Friend

By: K. Ryan, 2003

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Rating: PG for themes

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Disclaimer: I may love both Lindhall and Numair, but I've never owned them, or anything else. 

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"Lindhall, I am _telling _you, and there's nothing you can do about it."

The air was thick with listening spells, speaking spells, and fear. All around, feet could be heard over jeweled floors, running to answer an Emperor's demands, and birds sang their wild tunes, exquisite and happy in a world made just for them. 

A caged world, full of treasures. 

Lindhall Reed was looking at one of them. "It's not safe, Arram. You can't afford the risk."

"If I can't trust you, then who _is _there in this world?" 

Lindhall sighed, running a cloth over a turtle's glass home. Outside the windows, it was getting dark, and the red star was coming out, shining weirdly over him and all Carthak. Inside, animal eyes looked at him from their lovingly constructed worlds--glass and scales sparkling from the light globes he and his student had once made, laughing both at their successes and when over-ambitious attempts blew up in their faces, streaking hair and tailored robes with soot. 

His student. The light didn't sparkle off Arram Draper--he absorbed it. It was taken in by long, dark hair, by a dreamer's eyes--which were now so tense and shadowed that they were hardly recognisable as the pair known to light up at the sight of beautiful books, girls or displays--and by distinctive, black robes. The best student Lindhall had ever had, and the most dangerous. Those robes told the world what he was, and made the world want him.

Made Ozorne want him.

Made Varice want him.

Made Lindhall want him. 

Want him to live. 

"I won't be the one that sets the knife falling, my boy."

Arram stared at his teacher, at his friend, and bewilderment joined the tension. "You'd never betray me."

"Everyone is a traitor under torture."

"Lindhall, _please_. They'd never suspect you--"

"--You don't--"

"--Don't interrupt me this time. This is… important."

Lindhall had to bite is lip to keep from screaming. _Are you so detached from the world that you don't understand how to really live in it?"_

Arram's voice was soft, thickened with the intrigues and emotions he had to be in and feel. "I need you to know. To know me."

The teacher had to smile. "I've known you, taught you, and often cleaned up after you for years and years, Arram. If I knew you any more intimately people would start to talk." A hint of old laughter appeared in his bright, quick eyes. "A new name doesn't change who you are," he lied. 

"Come on, old man. It's a very good name, if I do say so myself. Very mysterious, very magical--"

"--Very grandiose and rather pretentious?"

Arram grinned, blushing a little. "Perhaps." 

Lindhall gripped the youth's shoulder, his long, ink-stained fingers reassuring, and silently insisting. "All the better I don't know, then, isn't it?" he smiled, rather sadly. "It would be impossible to forget."

Pulling away, Arram draped himself into the teakwood chair by the window. It was his, and always had been, since he'd first sat there as a ten-year-old, asking his young teacher about the Banjiku, and the copper fire that no one could see. He'd never see the chair again, after tonight. "Is this really going to work?"

"Of course it is, if you've got your wits and as much talent in you now as you had yesterday."

Arram groaned, putting his head in his hands. "Be serious."

"I am, friend. I am. I have complete faith in you."

The student blushed again, lowering his eyes. "I'm scared, Lindhall."

"You? Scared? Never thought I'd see the day. Are you sure I'm saying goodbye to the right Arram?" Lindhall walked over to the chair, face kind. "Of course you are," he whispered. 

They spoke for a long time, student and teacher. Arram fed the turtles. Lindhall tried to wade his way through paperwork. 

And then the time came for the moment, for their way of life, to end. 

The student stood in the doorway, and tried to smile. 

"It's Numair Salmalìn, Lindhall. I'm telling you this, as a friend." 

The door closed, and the red star shone, bright and feral, in the sky. 


	2. Thinking Thoughts you've Thought you're ...

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My Dear, Dear Friend

By: K. Ryan, 2003.

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Rating: PG

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Disclaimer: I own _niente_. _D'accordo?_

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Authors Note: This was _meant _to be a one-shot. But, because of some wonderful reviews, I now face the prospect of several Lindhall-centric vignettes. As if I don't have enough projects at the moment…*grin* I love you all. 

Now is also a time to mention that both these chapters are responses to fanfiction challenges. The first from own Seanfhocal Circle ("I'm telling you this as a friend") and this one, a response to Trisana McGraw at Tortall100. They both just happened to fit. 

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Two: Thinking Thought's you've Thought you're Not to Think

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_The rooms of Master Lindhall Reed, the Imperial University of Carthak, Carthak. The traitor Arram Draper has vanished, and is yet to be found. _

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"Master Reed? _Surely _you have to know _something_." 

"My dear, I know as much as you do--probably less." 

"Well, I know nothing, you _have _to have more than me." 

"That's not a very logical conclusion to make, Miss Kingsford." 

A young woman was sitting in Lindhall's office, ankles elegantly crossed together, and her bright hair contrasting wonderfully with the dark wood of her chair--the one as far away from the animals as possible. Lindhall was standing opposite her, his back to the turtles; leaf-mould clinging to the hem of his teacher's robes and one hand resting on the arm of a chair made from teak. 

The woman pouted. "I've never been logical."

Lindhall tried not to grin, but he couldn't help it. Even hands as large as his weren't able to cover his expression. "That's certainly true." 

"That's a horrible thing for you to say!" Varice-- (for that is who she was, currently looking radiant and slightly indignant) --muttered, eyes flashing and looking bluer then ever against her blush. "And rather dangerous now, I might add." She looked up at her former teacher, her smile proud. "I'm Ozorne's official hostess."

Lindhall bowed. "Congratulations to you, Hostess Kingsford."

Varice giggled. Lindhall looked so _serious_. "No need to get all formal on me, Master Reed. I was too poor a student under you for you to have any respect for me whatsoever." 

"You could have been much better, you know," said Lindhall, straightening. "Arram certainly thought so." 

"Oh, Arram thinks too many things." Varice stood, straightening the cream silk of her robe. "I happen to _like _the idea of wall-colours being coordinated to what I'm wearing of an evening, and making beautiful things. And why do you say 'thought'? He may have vanished off the face of Carthak, but he's not dead."

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Oh, 'Arram's' dead, all right, Lindhall thought, in-spite of himself. _Changing his black feather's for a peacock's. Bright-bird Salma--no. Don't think like that, you stupid man. You can't even _think _of thinking that name. What you just thought…oh dear…_

"...Master Reed?" Varice could see something very wrong in Lindhall's eyes. "You _do _know something, _don't _you." It wasn't a question. She glared up at him, eyes harsh, but biting her traitor-lips with worry. "He really did commit treason, and you've helped him escape, or he's dead." 

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He can't be dead, Varice thought, trying not to shiver. _If he knew he was going to die, he would have said goodbye, properly. He's always been so romantic, like that… _With slim fingers, she touched her lips. She'd bitten them hard enough to make them bleed. _Shakith, I'm in love with a traitor._" The thought was a terrible one, which made her cold with self-disgust, but _anything _was better then the alternative. 

"Miss Kingsford?" Lindhall's voice was soft, and full of sympathy, pulling her away from the chaos in her head. "Varice?" 

"I don't think we should speak of this again," she whispered, backing towards the door. "I don't…I don't want to know." Her eyes were filling up with tears; every part of her was treacherous, today. "I serve the Empire." 

Lindhall shuddered, but he didn't look away. "As do we all." 

"Do you?" Her voice cracked on the last word, but she didn't look away either. 

Lindhall opened the door for her, smiling gently, with tears of his own in his eyes. "I am well known for my loyalty." 

"But, to whom? What are you loyal to?" Varice stepped out into the corridor. "Who _is_ it?"

Varice didn't wait for an answer, and Lindhall didn't give one. At least, not until the door was closed behind him and she was out of sight. 

"Who do you think it is?" 

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End file.
